Looking through the rearview Mirror
by Randomicity
Summary: High School sucks, no? Do you ever think to try and visualize the lives of the people around you? Various Animes take root in this one, and reviews are CRUCIAL, please, as I'm ACTUALLY TRYING! XD...I own nothing, except my OC'S.


**Smallwood Park, June 22nd 4: 31 P.M.**

_The little girl on a swing._

The sky was a perfect, cerulean blue. The grass was a delicate shade of emerald that reminded you of either sickness, or an overuse of chemicals. Somewhere far off, small children could be heard screaming as they chased eachother around the trunk of an oak tree that made up the shady alcove of where their picnicking parents sat, munching ham sandwiches and watermelon slices, pausing now and again to kindly berate their children from going too far into the woods.

The girl swung softly back and forth, her hair a raven curtain that hid her face from view, a delicate, rather pale thing, containing a set of large, nearly luminescent green eyes. Her clothes were bright and somewhat mismatched, as Day-Glo yellow and pink did not quite match, unless it was the Easter season.

The small girl was sitting on the swing, her feet dragging small tracks into the dirt, already marked with the footprints of thousands of kids before her. Her hair shone in the light from the sun, as her slight frame shook silently from the inhaling and exhaling necessary to remain alive.

From behind another tree, nearby, a small boy—nearly as small as the girl, but not quite—watched with an alert and rather hungry eye. His face was rapt, as if he was awaiting some small signal that the girl would give, that would cost him a great prize if he were to miss it.

The girl gave no notice of him, whether or not she knew he was there.

The boy shifted slightly, moving his weight to his left foot instead of his right—as it was falling asleep—and continued to stare at the girl the way an animal would if deciding to take a mate. The boy had no intention of taking a mate—eleven-year olds are still far from this train of thought, _now_, anyway—and he carefully noticed every detail about the girl on the swing, who still remained immobile.

The red ribbon in her hair, the small, jangling bracelet on her left wrist, the way her shoelaces were tied, left at top and right at the bottom. The boy knew this girl, he knew her as of four months ago, four months of sunny afternoons here, at the park, watching her, instead of racing bicycles down the hills with Bobby Causie and Jamie Friend. Jamie was _not_ his friend, and neither was Bobby, in fact, the pair did almost _anything_ in their power to make the boy a nervous wreck. They would call him a fag—the boy once overheard Bobby say to Jamie and a few others that he'd heard his brother use this word, and cause the other boy to cry—they would chase him across the schoolyard, throwing sticks and small stones, they would dump out his lunch pail and stomp it into the dirt, they would do all _sorts_ of things.

The boy didn't want to fight back, though. Most of the boys in his class would have laid Jamie and Bobby out in the dust, having them crying for mercy—or their mothers—and then steal their lunch money, but the boy saw no reason to fight them.

He didn't know why. He just _didn't._

And of course, it was also his _behavior_ that set the two after him. His usual quietness, his sometimes inability to speak or slight stutter whenever he was asked a direct question—except from a teacher, and his answers were nearly _always_ right—or whenever he spoke to a girl, as few girls ever spoke to him, and when they did, it was usually to ask him for either a pencil or pen, or the answer to a particularly difficult question.

He was always happy to oblige. He loved their smiles as he pulled the answer seemingly out of thin air.

Always bright smiles, too. They always seemed so _happy_, as if the world hadn't snuck up on them yet and whispered that eternal _gotcha_ in their ears. All children were like that, it seemed, all children were usually smiling and ignorant, because that was the way they were expected to be.

The adults underneath the shady trees, still snacking, felt exactly the same way.

The boy still watched the small girl, still silent and immobile. If the boy cared—or was brave enough—to get any closer than he was now, he would see the tears leaking silver tracks down her face.

They were just bright enough to remind me that this was a memory...

**(Ten years later)**

**Sheila Marks loved that the bag never talked back.** It never gave her snide comments when she asked for any favors. It never asked her age, weight, height, or telephone number. It had never made comments on how green her eyes were, or how she seemed to _flow_ when she walked. How liquid seemed to be infused into her movements until she was almost like something of the shadow she was so desperately trying to become.

_When you move, they can't getcha._ Another line that described her life. It was actually one from a crime novel she loved, called _The Bone Collector._ She'd never seen the film (she wasn't much a fan of T.V. She'd had too much of reality now to want to escape from it) But she'd read the book, and that line had literally taken her breath away. It seemed to describe her life as it was now, to take away the feeling that she was living as _someone else_, trying to escape her past self, which had become so distorted and warped that she didn't recognize her face in the mirror at night.

It was only one night that caused it, though. All of twenty minutes seemed to have redefined her somehow, not as in the genetic level, (As far as she knew, she was still A-T-G-C all the way) But in the level at which you look at yourself, some in disgust, some in fear, some in amazement or happiness and say...

"This is _me."_

And this was her. A twenty-three year old _Nidan_ (Second degree Black Belt) That had escaped from the bright lights, neon nights, and the euphoric addiction of cocaine to become catapulted into her future, violently aware of the rest of her life, feeling nearly double her still-young age.

She kept swinging at the bag, pivoting gracefully as she threw punches that only she and the bag knew were lightning-fast. She'd been taking lessons in Tae-Kwon Doh for the past four years now, and had made progress—according to her _sensei—_that most people don't even see until their ninth or tenth year. She knew what was partially responsible for her success. She knew that, in a way, if that hadn't happened to her, she wouldn't be the same person she was now. Her dreams wouldn't be laced with fear as they sometimes were, she wouldn't feel amiss at parties, or in particularly public places. She would be able to pass by couples without staring and wondering how they could be so close, and _remain_ that way...

She _used_ to be able to not do those things. To live without fear, without worry, to feel the same age she _was_, rather than like a stranger's mind in her own body.

She pivoted, kicking the bag forcefully in the center, right over the small X she had marked there, herself. If that bag were a person, she'd probably have done a considerable amount of damage to their ribs. She could nowhere _near_ crack the sternum, though, as it was rock-solid and seemingly impervious to any punch or kick she could throw at it—she had once tried her head, and had taken nearly a full ten minutes to regain consciousness—but her blows were nothing to be scoffed at, and she and a select few people knew this, as the aching bodies and sore backs became more and more _theirs,_ and less and less of _hers._

She felt comfortable here, her dojo.(Her garage) Safe within the controlling grasp of her martial art, rather than entwined in the arms of--

She shivered. Banishing that memory had been no small task.

She stared out the window at the empty street. It was late, and everyone had gone to sleep for the night, to await work the next morning. She knew she should sleep, as well, but work would have to wait...

She towled off briefly, wiping her face and brow...

She would stop when she was ready.

Ironically enough, that's exactly what he had said, moments before he broke her...

**(Flashback)**

**Everything was quiet.** The party was winding down, but far from over. Through the wall, she could still hear the pumping of bass as another rock ballad blared from the surround-sound system that she had paid for, and her friends had borrowed with permission. But their permission didn't _matter_, as they were her friends, so she simply said she didn't give a damn _how_ loud they put it, as long as they didn't _break_ it, and picked up her CD'S from the floor, where they most certainly would end up.

But right now, she didn't care. Right now, she was far away from the noise and Chaos of drunken teenagers. She was upstairs, in her bed, her arms wrapped securely around the neck of her boyfriend as he nuzzled her softly to sleep...

A few minutes later, she couldn't distinguish between wakefulness and nightmare.

She felt at first a slight pressure on her knees. Her eyes opened slightly and yielded nothing, as they had not adjusted to the light. Her mouth tasted like copper, and it felt as if the inside of her head had been stuffed with mothballs. She tried to talk, to make sure that someone else was in he room with her—she was hearing noises, and was _pretty_ sure she wasn't tripping out—but her voice box was set firmly to the OFF position, and all that came out was a dry hiss. She poked her tongue out through her teeth, feeling something soft that gave slightly when she jabbed at it. She rolled her head to one side—a wave of nausea almost made her throw up, bad idea—took a breath, and then she realized what was happening.

She was gagged.

At first, she ignored it. It was probably another dumb joke played by her friends at her expense. They were always pulling stupid pranks on one another—what teenagers _didn't?_--but she really had to admit, they'd gotten her, with this one.

_Am I under the covers? Am I still upstairs? Where the Hell am I?_

Her eyes refused to focus, and she felt something warm around her ears that didn't disappear when she lifted her head off the pillow. She opened her eyes as wide as they could go, and got nothing but _still_ blackness.

Her eyesight didn't suck. She should be able to see, by now.

_I'm blindfolded...Gagged, and have no idea where I am. This is a **really** elaborate joke._

She grinned beneath the gag.

_I'm gonna kick Trent's ass once I get these damned things off me._

She tried to sit up, but felt and hand push her gently back onto the mattress. She realized just how _cold_ she was, and then she realized she was topless.

_What the hell?_

There would have been fear in that voice, by then. This seemed to be little _too far_ for a joke. Except for maybe the one time where she had found Lanny floating face down in her bathtub, one night after work. He told her—after she'd stopped screaming—that the water was freezing cold because he'd been there for about three hours.

_Good._ She'd thought._ I hope you frostbite on your crotch._

Her legs opened.

She started, she hadn't done that._ Someone_ was in the room with her, _someone_ was positioning her like a rather lifelike and grotesque marionette doll. _Someone_ apparently didn't give a _damn_ what she thought or did.

Her legs remained open, held into place, and she croaked out.

"Hello? Trent? _Who's there?" _It was becoming very difficult now to keep the fear from her voice. It was almost _impossible_ to see this as nothing more than a mere joke, now.

And she knew this.

She squirmed, trying to get free, but then cried out as someone entered her.

Her body shook with his thrusts, and she felt as if she was being electrocuted. She felt a deep, penetrating warmth that seemed to run down her body into her thighs, and she was powerless to stop it. She twisted to the left—dragging whoever was on top of her along—and she twisted, crying out mutely in protest as the intruder—in the most dirty and yet intimate way—refused to relent, and continued pushing into her, until she heard someone growl out.

"I'll stop when I'm damned ready."

She froze. That _voice!_ It was--

It was Trent. Her boyfriend. The one she thought she'd be together forever with. Her _lover_, for God's sake!

She felt a wetness on her cheeks, and didn't realize they were tears until he'd finished.

She lay there, crying, as he left the room. The house was silent, now, she struggled with her thoughts, to try and bring them together into _some_ kind of sanity, and could only think of one word.

She shivered, Trent had _done_ her. Something she'd dreamed about doing with him for _months_, something intimate and beautiful and sacred...

Not to mention totally nightmarish.

_The R-word._

She lay there, crying, cold, alone, until she finally gathered the strength—she knew not from where—to sit up, wrap the comforter around her body, and reach for whatever felt like a phone.

They never caught him, she never spoke of this again.

A week later, she took a pregnancy test, and failed.


End file.
